Attrition
by Anotherjaneway
Summary: Roy and Johnny go nuts while giving a schoolhouse demonstration. The 51 gang's world is turned upside down when the unexpected happens.


This is a text version of the original still airing imaged, music soundtracked story.

Emergency Theater Live, Episode Forty One

41. Attrition Season Six - Episode 41 Short summary-  
Roy and Johnny go nuts while giving a schoolhouse demonstration.  
The 51 gang's world is turned upside down when the unexpected happens.

****WARNING**** The long summary to come is very story spoiling and will take away plot surprises if you read it now before reading the longer story below it.

Decide now if you want to read this episode's detailed summary before doing so.

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Long Summary-  
Johnny and Roy try to get through a lunch hour, sniping at each other out of boredom for a lack of runs. They encounter a cold shouldered lifeguard and Bay City detectives while babe watching at the beach with Henry the station dog. Squad 51 gets gratefully lost hosting a fire department/ emergency services demo at a local school but have a problem with drifting embers.  
An emergency develops in the form of a little girl bleeding to death in a playground equipment accident, which turns into a high angle rescue involving a ladder truck. The child is airlifted out safely but not in time enough for Gage to grab a favorite dessert at Rampart's cafeteria. Dixie McCall works a graceful feminine miracle for the sake of Johnny's sweet tooth. Nitpicking causes Squad 51 to crash with another car that Engine 51 responds to. Dixie McCall is found to be the other driver.  
Dr. Brackett performs an emergency procedure to save her life during extrication. Cap and the crew are hard pressed to keep everyone safe and breathing. They welcome Craig Brice's aid with open arms. Brackett does a litte recruiting of his own calling in a pair of doctors from another city. All the firemen eagerly await surgical recovery news on Dixie and fall prey to the antics of their guest physicians.

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. The Story Unfolds...

Season Six, Episode Forty One.  
Attrition Debut Launch: January 1st, 2007. *  
From: "Roxy Dee"  
Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 23:41:33 -0800 (PST) Subject: That Certain "Flare"~~

"Man, this is the best idea you've had all day." said Johnny, letting loose a sigh of pure displaced aggression as he inhaled his double decker triple pickle cheeseburger.

"Huh. If my idea of eating now's the only one you've liked today, we're in for some very serious trouble." Roy said sucking on his straw stabbed soda angrily in reply.

"I don't figure." Johnny frowned.

"We haven't had a run all morning. We've...just been.. tooling around, waiting for something exciting to happen." Roy insisted.

"Don't we always?" Johnny asked sarcastically, gesturing the obvious with a nod at the still turned on HT sitting at the ready in front of them on top of their paint peeling, bleached out picnic table.

Roy rolled his eyes and let loose a longish complaint. DeSoto took a deep breath. "All we have on the agenda for today, barring any unexpected emergency calls, is one school tour, the yearly vehicle maintenance checks on the squad and engine, and a date with Dr. Brackett at his come one, come all semi-annual paramedic to doctor brainstorming meeting at Rampart. So why are you bristling every spine at me and the rest of the guys today? You've made us all feel like it's suddenly the end of the world today."

His focus of concern was one that Johnny had already dealt with mentally several hours ago. "So,.." mumbled Gage with hungrily chewing,  
overstuffed burger cheeks. "You just made it sound like a little assigned P.R. sidework's suddenly the purest torture. I thought you liked your job." he said, eyeing up his partner a little askance.

"I could ask the same thing of you, pal. My ear's are still blistering from the last time you started venting out your lips. You've been contradicting anything and everything I've tried to bring up into friendly conversation ever since we rolled out of bed for roll call at five a.m... " DeSoto told him, brandishing a steaming french fry. "....LAST Thursday." he glared.

"I have not." frowned Johnny, defending himself.

"See? There you go again!" Roy snorted in frustration. "O.K., come on, let's go. If we're going to enjoy any of the time that's left during our new unofficial lunch hour, it's gonna be sooner rather than later."

"Wait a minute. Where are we going?" Johnny asked, scooping up his food and two pop cups as he hastily kept up with his partner's fast retreat back to the rescue squad. He already had their full set of keys out.

"I think I finally figured out the one place that I can take ya that'll put that smile, that I can only dimly recall appearing on your face once for a brief second since the beginning of summer, back where it belongs." Roy said, no nonsense while he started the ignition sharply. "Now put your helmet on so I can leave."

Johnny glared at him. "Geesh, all right already. I'm set." he said, abandoning his still steaming meal into its paper bag in between his shoes with one hand while he shoved his helmet on with the other.

"Thank you." Roy groused, as he took off from the fast food stand's emergency vehicle parking space with a squeal that rubbed the curb.

Whining, Henry the dog awoke and lifted his head from the seat that stretched between the paramedics when Roy's irritated, lurchy driving caused the early vestiges of car sickness to begin rising in the pit of his stomach.

"Sorry, boy." apologized DeSoto, reaching a hand over to Henry's head to scratch it affectionately. "I guess I must be having a bad day because someone else near me seems to be having one, too."

"Speak for yourself." Gage said with a sour face.

"I thought I already WAS." Roy shot right back without taking his eyes off the road.

The two paramedics sat in stony silence for a whole five minutes.  
Only once did Roy "cheat" and flick on the squad's reds to scatter a pack of slow drivers who seemed not to be noticing the green light hanging in front of their noses.

Soon, DeSoto took a right turn, heading into sunlight.

"Is this it?!" Johnny demanded with a snarl, jerking his thumb out the passenger side window at something very large in front of them.

Roy sneezed when the tang of sea salt finally did a number on his sinuses. "Yeah." he replied tersely. "I hope you're satisfied. Because it's my absolute last desperate ditch effort trying to be nice to ya, for the rest of the shift."

"Well, far out." Johnny suddenly beamed, wide eyed and happy. "I had no idea you had THIS up your sleeve."

"Had what up my sleeve?"

Gage looked at Roy as if DeSoto was having a sudden stroke.  
"A lunch trip bringing Henry to the ocean. You did remember that Stephanie's on duty the same schedule as us, right?"

"Who's Stephanie?!" Roy roared, doubly puzzled by Johnny's abruptly changed mood and line of thought. Roy's pot was definitely simmering over the brim. And then some.

"My current "chick" as Chet would put it if he was here." Johnny sighed,  
happily leaning an elbow out the open window frame. He turned into the sharpish hot breeze ruffling his hair as he sniffed the wonderfully cooling humid air that just was beginning to blow into the squad.

Roy's mouth flopped open. "Oh." he said, simply. Then he started gaping as he tried to put two and two together. "Is she a firefighter or something?"  
he finally asked, running the locations of the county's sister stations that he knew were along their current route through his head.

"No." Gage said, adding nothing more. He just went on smiling stupidly.

DeSoto made a noise of disgust when he realized that Johnny was in love. "Oh, so that explains it. You're suffering from some kind of separation anxiety being away from her." he diagnosed.

"I am not." Johnny frowned indignantly at Roy.

"Sure you are. I've seen you this way a couple of times before."

"With who?" Gage denied.

"With Valerie, the kids-from-h*ll mom we met when she got hit by a car right in front of us for one......" he started to tick off on a couple of fingers.

"Oh, I'm over her completely, Roy. For Pete's sake, she's more suited for.. for.. Craig Brice than me, if you ask me.." Gage frowned, pausing at his sudden double pronoun delivery.

Both men sucked in bated breaths, thinking about it. Then both just as suddenly shook their heads in dismissal and pushed it away.

"Pull over right there in that parking lot. I think I see her." Johnny said excitedly. He pulled his helmet off. "Hey, Stephanie!" he called out, sticking an eager head through the squad's side window. He started to wave.

Roy peered over their dashboard at the scene in front of them and screwed up his eyebrows in confusion. He noticed nothing but a pair of sunbathing moms watching a toddler of someone's frolicking in the shallows on the beach.

Gage called out again, earning an irritated over-the-shoulder glance from both the women wearing bikinis.

"Pervert.." one of them hissed. Then the two of them turned back around and they began ignoring the rescue squad parked directly behind them on the concrete causeway edging the beach.

Johnny was oblivious.

Coughing absently, Roy stopped trying to figure it out. He simply opened his driver's door and watched as Henry slipped off his lap to land with a soft plish onto the sandy beach that was slowly heating underneath them. "There you go, Henry. Have fun. You got five minutes. We'll hit the horn if we get a run." he promised.

"No, Henry! Not that way, ya stupid mutt. She's over there.." Johnny called out to their station dog. Henry ignored him, plopping down under a salted piece of driftwood. Already, his tongue was lolling out and panting from the heat of the day. Gage made a noise of disbelief. "And Cap says he's the best for interacting with all the school kids? I'm beginning to wonder."

"Tell you what. Next time I have to make a choice for community ed detail, I'll go recruit Boot and Bonnie. They'll be a good match for you. All three of ya are disgustingly shaggy." DeSoto snapped.

"Hmph.." Johnny, said, only half paying attention to Roy. His eyes were focused not on all the bikinis flocking around them on the beach, but towards a lone manned lifeguard tower. "Ah, ha. I knew it. This one's hers."  
he celebrated. "Hey Steph!" he finally improvised using the squad's mini megaphone he grabbed out from the glove compartment. "You got a minute?" he boomed out into the air.

To Roy's amazement, the yellow L.A. County Beaches Rescue Truck idling in the sun started into motion towards them from where it was parked with buried tires in the sand at the base of the light blue painted wooden life guard tower.

"You rang?" said an attractive lifeguard with long, glowing brown hair as she pulled up next to Squad 51. "Why, hello Johnny. This is quite a surprise. Did you come here to be nice to me?" she smiled sweetly. "Or gloat..?!" she snapped, her face suddenly shifting into an angry coldness.

"Whaa - huh?" Johnny choked, stopping his pursing lips stretch out his window trying to kiss her.

The woman in the red L.A. county swim suit and patch let loose.  
"I found out about that bet you have running between Captain Thorpe and your own Chief McConnikee. I can't believe you, you pathetic hose jockey. What kind of paramedic are you who bets which agency FAILS to pull the most victims out of trouble in a month? That's- that's- that's sick, MISTER Gage, even for you." she glared, leaning back into her driver's seat."For your own personal information, we saved seventy nine people last week. Top THAT." she glared. "And that was fighting strong rip tide currents, too. Not simply moving through thin air over land with a weeny trickling little stream of water squirting out a hose in front of you in defense against the elements. This is one bet, Jonathan Roderick Gage, that you are going to LOSE. Goodbye forever." she scintillated, falsely sweet, spinning her tires in the beach sand.

Stephanie Holden, the Baywatch Lifeguard, indignantly returned her truck to the foot of her nearby watch tower. She waved a red orange rescue can at her partner still sitting in a sea facing director's chair to show him all was well with them despite the visiting non-code-R pair newly arrived from the fire department.

Johnny's face continued to gape like a fish. Then Gage began to steam out both his ears around the edges. "Chet... I'm gonna kill him..." he rumbled ominously.

"Looks like we're not the only ones with the same brilliant take-a-picnic-to-the-beach idea." DeSoto said into the heating stillness inside the cab. "Look right over there." said Roy, pointing down the beach to the north."Guess you're not gonna be the only one babe watching during lunch today, Johnny."

A red Gran Torino with a white stripe was parked askew on top of a mat of drying kelp in the sand off the parking lot. Its two blond and brunette haired detectives had their windshield angled so that it had a bird's eye view of both the bikini moms and the lifeguard tower's front.

Opening his mouth widely, Roy began to laugh until the tears ran down his face in sheer rivulets.

-  
Roy felt a whole lot better. He was getting into teaching their school kids all about fire prevention and safety. He also liked throwing in a healthy dose of first aid training, too. There were plenty of skills that children their age could handle very easily. Cold water for burns... The heimlich maneuver for choking... Mouth to mouth for heart attacks and drowning.  
::Good old Henry here's a great ambassador.:: Roy thought. ::I don't know how we ever managed these demonstrations before without having a station's dog for focusing their interest.:: he wondered.

Johnny was quiet, taking the physical demo part of things as he let Roy do all the talking in front of their class. Gage was lighting a garbage can on fire by rote, when it happened...

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Photo: Gage glaring with a burger full mouth outside.

Photo: Roy and Johnny eating at a hot dog stand.

Photo: DeSoto and Gage arguing in the squad.

Photo: Beach scape of the Malibu skyline.

Photo: Henry the basset hound camping out by the seashore.

Photo: Two bikini moms watching a toddler frolick in the ocean.

Photo: A yellow rescue truck view of a light blue lifeguard tower.

Photo: Lifeguard Stephanie Holden looking out of a Baywatch truck.

Photo: Johnny Gage glaring out Squad 51's window behind him.

Photo: Stephanie making a condescending face in sun on the sand.

Photo: Starsky and Hutch's red and white striped car on the beach.

Photo: A garbage can on fire in closeup.

*  
From: "Cory Anda" Date: Thu Jan 11, 2007 11:00 am Subject: Every Second Counts..

A little boy's voice piped up. "Say, Mr. Fireman?"

"Yeah?" Gage asked, standing ready with a fire extinguisher for Roy's next rehearsed segment.

"Why do so many firefighters show up for a medical emergency?"  
he asked intelligently.

Henry began barking at the garbage fire from where he was sitting under a pile of girls' hands on the other side of the library classroom.

Johnny's eyes never left the trash can as Roy's voice droned on about what would happen next in their demo. A piece of flaming char rose up out of the wire basket and drifted up on heat currents only to land on the carpeting at Gage's feet. He began to stamp on it to put it out before the rug could catch on fire. "Uh, Roy? I think it's about time.." he stage whispered. "This is getting kinda hot here." he hinted sotto voce'.

Roy wasn't paying attention. He was displaying a hose nozzle and lever to the front row, all of whom were boys, while he delivered the how-to-put-out-a-fire speech.

Another large apple sized ember floated up from the flames, this time landing on Johnny's back to the horror of the school kids.

"Ow.. Roy.. I think I need your help here..." he said, whirling around in a circle, first in one direction and then in another, trying to knock the cinder off his uniform shirt and down into shoe range.

The school kids began to laugh at his antics.

"Hey, Roy. Pay attention! I'm burning up!"

"Say mister. Why don't you stop, drop and roll?" asked a nerdy little girl wearing tape repaired glasses that were broken by the nose.

The kids chortled when Johnny ignored her. Gage was beginning to panic when the scent of cotton scorching started rising up from between his shoulder blades.

Johnny's dancing only grew more desperate, and soon it became incredibly funny to all the children and the one fire dog who were watching in rivetted fascination. "Ouch! God D-- uh, I mean Gosh darn it.. RoyYYY? Code red! Code--"

"Whaa?" DeSoto said, looking up for the first time from his captivated audience, still in a half grin. "Ohmyg*d. Hold still."  
he choked in surprise. Snatching up a fire tarp from their demonstration table, he spun the blanket like a fisherman's surf net in the air until it landed solidly on top of his partner. Then he tackled him to the floor.  
Both paramedics fell heavily onto the rug in a jumble of arms and legs.  
Then DeSoto rose up quickly to begin smothering the flames. "Are you getting burned?" he said, slapping hands up and down Johnny's back.

"NO.. Jeez, watch out for the trash can!" Gage said, pointing a couple of fingers outside the muffling blanket. "It's flaring."

Roy vaulted over Johnny, picked up the fire extinguisher that Johnny had dropped onto the floor like a sack of potatoes, and pulled the pin on its handle.

"I can do that!" shouted an eager little girl who had most of Henry in her lap.

"Stay seated.." Roy shouted, yelling over the hissing vapors of the fire retardant he was blasting out over the garbage can. The fog began to spread out over the floor, covering the children like soup.

Hysterical laughter ensued as children began disappearing, one by one beneath the mist.

Henry only began to bark louder at all the commotion.

Hearing his back sizzling stop, Johnny uncovered himself and shot to his feet, still groping with both hands, still trying to reach behind himself. "Roy..is it out?"

"What? The can? Yeah...."

"No, my back!"

"Turn around.." DeSoto ordered, re-aiming his nozzle in Johnny's direction.

"Oh, no! Don't get m---" Johnny sputtered as a rich plume of extinguishing gas tented over him, coating his hair, skin, back and face with a thick drifting flour of white, compression chilled gas.

The children jumped to their feet, laughing hysterically and pointing as Johnny slowly exposed when the vapors surrounding him began evaporating.

"Very funny.. .ha." Gage glowered to himself. He didn't even feel Roy whirling him around to check out the hole burned in over his T-shirt.  
"Some demo this is turning out to be." Johnny told him. "Next time, let's use our usual newspaper instead of the school's typing paper. It burns into heavier ash that probably won't float around so inconveniently the next time we light up." he lectured Roy. Gage re-shot into action when a stray ember started drifting towards a little girl's bouncing curls. He snatched the air to catch it like a football player fumbling the ball until it was out. "Ouch!.. That smarts like the mother f--" he bit his lip, hard.

"No kidding." said the girl who had offered the putting-out-a-fire advice a minute earlier. "Fire's hot, mister fireman. Aren't you supposed to know about that kind of thing already?"

Johnny shot her a dirty look and began dusting off his hair to rid himself of all the bright white extinguisher powder that was slowly subliming off because of the room temperature of the air. Soon, all the white mist,  
and condensate, were gone.

They had just settled the kids back into their viewing ring, sitting indian style on the floor in front of them, when the teacher popped her head back into the classroom. "How's it going, guys?" she asked.

"Just peachy. I think we're a real hit.." Gage growled at her.

Before she could react, Roy stepped in front of Johnny quickly. "Uh,.. everything's under control. We've finished the fire demo part and uh, we'll be doing show and tell of all our medical gear next."  
he said lamely, thinking fast as he returned the pin back into the handle of the frosted fire exinguisher he still held in both hands.  
"Ouch, that's cold.." he said, dropping it. Miraculously, it stood upright on the floor neatly by his feet. DeSoto smiled lamely.

The teacher substitute took one sniff at the smell of smothered paper smoke in the air. "Hmmph.. Ok, I'll see you in about five minutes or so."  
she said, looking at both firemen oddly. She especially looked at Johnny's fire retardant sculpted hair. He was looking a bit like James Dean, with the way it was plastered to his head. Hastily, Johnny combed it back to normal with a couple of fingers. "Class, are you having fun yet?" she asked, shrugging.

Roy and Johnny began wincing for the worst.

"YeahHHHH!" came the loud cheer from every child in the room.

"They're really great." said one over-excited little boy.

"Ok.. I'm going back to my office again.." the teacher said timidly,  
reluctantly, pointing back down the school hallway. "Bye.."

She left her classroom doorway VERY slowly, one watchful eye after the other.

Johnny and Roy and all the kids just waved at her, until she was gone.

Then Roy got back down to business. "Ok, now where were we?"  
he asked the students.

"You were gonna answer my question about firefighters.." said the intelligent, but now cranky boy, due to the fact that he wasn't able to speak loudly enough any more over the excited chatter that was building up in the room.

"Oh, yeah, that's right. Why we send out so many firemen to medical calls.." Gage said, getting into it at last. He coughed once, for real, to rid his chest of the last of the garbage can smoke and then he took over for his partner, who made an immediate beeline for the water pitcher set out for them both on the teacher's desk. Johnny suppressed a stab of jealousy when he saw Roy down two full glasses in a sequence of rapid swallows.

Gage cleared his own parched throat and looked at the boy. "Ok, uh, I'll answer that. But first what's your name?"

"It's Jimmy."

"Ok, Jimmy." said Gage expansively, rubbing his hands together in deep thought. He kept track of Roy laying out their demo medical gear boxes and equipment onto the floor so the children could get to see what they looked like a little better. "How do you want me to answer that? Simple and easy, or the dictionary definition?" he chuckled, thinking he was being clever in his humor.

The boy simply glared at him with his arms crossed. "I.. am in the fifth grade... What do you think?" challenged the boy.

"Dictionary definition it is.." Gage mumbled, his face struggling to keep its professional firefighter paramedic smile. Then he spoke up haltingly. "Ok..uh, you asked for it. heh." he said with a dry mouth. He nodded gratefully to Roy when DeSoto finally handed him a full glass of cold water. Johnny slammed it back like a cowboy shooting shots of whiskey. "Thanks. I really needed that." he said to Roy. "Ok..the reason why." he said,  
plunking the empty glass back onto the teacher's desk. "Ok, Jimmy, uh.. it's like this.." he said, flipping the teacher's chair around so he could straddle the seat and lean his still smoke sooty elbows onto its back support.  
"We respond both an Advanced Life Support (ALS) Paramedic Unit and Basic Life Support (BLS) Engine or Truck Company on all life threatening emergencies. This means that six personnel from the Fire Department might enter your house, with at least two of those personnel being firefighter/paramedics." Johnny elaborated, pointing at both Roy and himself. "That's what we are. Uh, what we do inside our fire department.." he said, then he broke off, forgetting what he was going to say next.

"After that fire stunt, you still call yourselves real firefighters?!"  
asked the cranky kid.

Roy, embarrassed, took over, giving Gage some cover in which to recall his thoughts.

Johnny didn't protest. He just got off the chair and knelt down over the med gear and started dragging out the items Roy began to speak about while he talked.

DeSoto continued where Johnny had left off... "In the event that cardio-pulmonary resuscitation, C.P.R,  
is needed, the paramedics wouldn't easily be available to provide advanced life support, uh, that is, giving injections and inserting breathing tubes, if they were performing two person CPR themselves. The typical division of labor during these types of emergencies is usually as follows: One paramedic, the primary one, performs advanced airway procedures such as intubation on anyone not breathing. He gathers patient information, makes base hospital contact, receives and gives medication orders, and oversees all aspects of the ongoing and continuing patient care. Are you all with me so far?" Roy asked the children.

"Uh huh.." they said, rivetted by DeSoto's story telling. Even Henry was rapt.

"Ok." said Roy. "The secondary paramedic administers cardiac defibrillation, uh, heart electrical shocks." he corrected. "And he's the one to gain intravenous access using I.V.s so he can administer medications. And he oversees how the C.P.R. is going in order to make sure that it continues to be effective enough for the patient during different phases of treatment. Two BLS firefighters perform C.P.R..."

"Who presses on somebody's chest then if you two are too busy to do it yourselfs?" asked the girl holding Henry.

Gage piped up. "Our crewmates do, honey. They're what we call basic life support firefighters. They perform the actual C.P.R., even bagging oxygen into someone's lungs in between compressions." he said, holding up a teaching ambu and squeezing it before he handed it down to a child for a classroom pass around. Then he demonstrated a few cycles of that kind of resuscitation with a second ambu apparatus on the mannikin they had left lying sprawled and bare chested on the floor.

"Oh, ok." replied the little girl, squeezing hers a few times with its pressure valve disconnected mask plastered over her face.

Johnny added more. "One BLS firefighter also assists us with the preparation of all medical equipment and supplies we may need: the EKG monitor, the suctioning device, the spine board for transportation purposes. And the medicines we will probably find ourselves using, many of which have to be assembled at the rescue scene to maintain sterility."

"What's that? Stir?.. star..?" asked the brainy boy, who really wasn't.

"Sterility. That means germ free." said Roy.

::Or sperm free.:: Gage chuckled mentally in a joking thought.  
Gage went on with his answer. "One supervisor's needed to oversee the entire incident call, our fire captain, to help with transportation and our patient's house-to-ambulance transfer. He might even be the one consoling family members if someone's really sick and we're working on them. Our captain's free to respond to questions, he can gather witness information, and even request additional fire truck and ambulance or helicopter resources if they're needed."

"Cool!" said another little boy, holding a training set of disconnected defibrillator paddles up in the air. He mocked shocked his best buddy sitting next to him who played along by falling over suddenly fake-dead and violated through the heart.

Gage grinned at their antics.

One little girl raised her hand. "But what if you get there, and it's just a bee sting or something really dumb?" she asked Roy by tugging on his pants.

"Oh, that's easy." said DeSoto, kneeling down to show her an oxygen mask. "On many emergency calls, not all our fire personnel are needed. We respond everybody at first for what we think is going to be the worst case scenario, a C.P.R. call, and rank a response all the way down to release returning personnel by radio dispatch reports, if they're not needed. You see, the absolute best in patient care is always the Los Angeles County Fire Department's top goal and many times an extra pair of helping hands makes giving that care a step way above the state's usual norm, for all the citizens of Torrance." he said.

Shyly, the little girl tried putting on the mask, but it was upside down.  
Gently, Roy connected it up to the dummy oxygen tank that was only full of room air, readjusted it onto her face and turned it on. "There. That's how it fits. Kinda hissy, huh?" he asked her.

She nodded. "It sounds like a leaky balloon." she agreed.

"Hey, I wanna try.." said her neighbor.

Roy affectionately tousled the curls on top of the second little girl's head. "Don't worry. You'll all get a chance to play with everything here." he said to the room at large. "But you're going to have to wait your turn in an orderly fashion, so everybody line up behind what equipment you think you want to play with and Johnny and I'll get you started off. Once you get a chance to see the first thing, move onto the next piece of gear that you wanna see next. Don't worry about missing anything. We won't stop until everybody's had a chance to--"

The sound of running feet interrupted them. It was the school's principal.  
"Mr. DeSoto, Mr. Gage?" asked the well dressed man in a suit. "I'm Mr. Frank, Roosevelt Elementary's head principal."

"Yes? What's the problem?" Johnny asked instantly, reading that need off the man easily.

"It's one of our third graders. She snuck out of class about ten minutes ago and one of my chaperones just found her out in the playground. Apparently, she was playing on the monkey bars when the whole thing came loose and tipped over on top of her." he explained.

"Is she hurt?" Roy asked.

"Yes." he replied, as Johnny and Roy grabbed for their helmets and fire jackets.

"Is she conscious?" Johnny asked, plying for more details as he pulled out his walkie talkie from his turnout's jacket to call themselves out on a response at their location. He barely noticed Roy running for the parking lot and the rescue squad's real medical gear.

"No. But I- I- I.. think she's still breathing.." said the soft spoken, larger man. "Her hand's caught on something. It's real bad. Cindy's out there trying to stop all the bleeding."

"Ok, see if you can find this child's parental consent papers." Gage told him. He stopped the man by the arm when the principal tried to leave unthinkingly. "But first, show me the way out to her. " said Johnny,  
prioritizing things. "Henry, go find the teacher and bring her in here to mind all of the kids." he told their station dog. For safety's sake,  
he took the acetylene barbeque torch that he and Roy had been using to light the trash can paper and stuffed it away into a jacket pocket.

Henry barked once and loped out of the room to perform that task.

"Where did Mr. DeSoto go?" asked the principal defensively as they quickly left the classroom.

"My partner left only long enough to go pull up our rescue squad to where she's trapped. You say she's how old?" Johnny plied.

"Eight and a half. My G*d, how can her teacher be so inattentive?  
I always keep telling everybody on my staff to keep counting those heads." fretted the principal.

Johnny half grinned to calm the man. "It's summer time. The out-of-doors is a siren's call for just about anybody this time of year, Mr. Frank. Can you tell me her first name?"

"It's Tasha."

"Ok, thanks. We'll handle it from here. Relax, we'll call the cops if you can't find Tasha's papers in time before we have to begin treating her."

Mr. Frank began to calm down enough to fall into a fast walk.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Gage didn't like what he saw when they finally got outside under the hot sunlight. The playground equipment that had fallen was a multi story apparatus, complete with an upper level fort and tire swings. He could see the motionless little girl, hanging by her arm about thirty feet in the air. He lifted his live HT to his mouth. "L.A., Squad 51. Roll Engine 51 to our location and a laddertruck. We've a trapped girl inside a metal structural collapse."  
##Squad 51, 10-4. Rolling one engine apparatus and a ladder company. Time out: 13: 03.##

The playground chaparone had climbed the mock fire pole over the sand pit near the collapsed monkey bars and was holding onto it for dear life with her legs while she held onto the pressure point in Tasha's trapped arm desperately at the fullest extent of her reach. "Hurry! I'm.. getting so tired." the woman moaned.

"Ok. All right. Just let go. I don't want you to fall from up there."  
Johnny said, whipping off his coat and helmet. He immediately went to the base of the pole. "Ok, slide down. I'll catch you on the way down." he said, holding up his hands.

"I can't let go. She's bleeding bad."

"I've got a tourniquet right here in my pocket!" he said, pulling out one from his hip holster. "I'll get up there and take over. Now come down before you fall down." he told her.

##Squad 51, L.A... Engine 51 reports an E.T.A. of four minutes to your location. Truck 9 is responding in six.##

"10-4. We'll be waiting.." Gage replied HT.

Gasping, trembling, the woman grasped the play fire pole,  
leaving behind bloody trails from the soiled fingers she had been using to aid Tasha. She slipped down the last eight feet to the ground when her gripping strength finally failed to hold her onto the slippery pole.

Johnny caught her as her feet impacted the sand. He absorbed some of her momentum by rolling both the woman and himself over onto one side into a muffled tackle. "You all right? You didn't sprain your ankles?" he asked.

"No," she sobbed, brushing messy hair away from her face with her arms as she avoided getting Tasha's blood onto her skin subconsciously. "Just help her." she cried, staying where she was, lying on the sand.

Gage immediately started climbing, using his gloves to dry off the pole as he ascended. Closer and closer, he rose up towards the limp little girl hanging by just her left hand from twisted knot of overstressed playground pipework. He saw something thick and red, dripping and falling by him in a steady rain from up above. ::That's arterial.:: he decided, grunting as he worked his way higher and higher. The scent of blood only made him climb faster.

He saw Roy running with the resuscitation gear and trauma boxes. "Leave those for now and get belts and ropes. She's way up here with a life threatening bleed!" Gage shouted at his partner. Reaching the top of the pole, Johnny locked his feet and ankles around the pole to hold himself in place and he reached over for the little girl's neck and upper arm. Clamping a hold back over her effected brachial artery, he reached a second hand out by the fingertips, trying to stretch far enough to feel for her carotid pulse. ::Is it there?:: he wondered, not seeing clear signs of breathing because of the wind blowing the girl's long trailing blond hair back and forth over her face and torso.

Johnny stretched even closer and very precariously from the great height he had climbed on the playground fire pole.  
"Tasha? Can you hear me?" he asked.

---------------------------------------------------------------

Photos: None.

*  
From: "Pat or Cassidy or Jeff" Date: Sun Feb 4, 2007 1:05 am Subject: Sheer Deprivation...

Johnny was regretting his choice of action and decision to just charge right on in. "Roy, hurry up! I'm getting real tired here..." he grunted, holding tight to the pole, and the little girl as hard as he could.

"I'm coming up!" Roy hollered, climbing with three belts, two rope coils and gear enough to set up their three anchor points above the girl. "Is she viable?"

"Yeah.." gasped Gage. "...for now. As soon as you get her tied off, get her O.P.A." he grunted, yelling around the tourniquet strap he had moved and now held ready in between his teeth.

Roy quickly negotiated the tilted playground equipment he still trusted to be secure around the child. DeSoto tied off his belt on a primary strut he could see directly jutting up from a concrete plug beneath the ground and he reached for the first of his spare belts.

"Get the girl's.." Johnny groaned, willing his fingers to keep on gripping the pulse point inTasha's arm. To Johnny, the tang of blood began to smell even saltier when the sweat running down his face began to evaporate.

"Nope. You're first." Roy grinned tightly as he reached over towards them. "She's not going anywhere with that trapped hand and only you are in danger of falling. I'm sure you don't want Cap seeing you like this." DeSoto said, lowering himself carefully down until he hung above his partner and the child. "Don't move." he told Gage.

"Wouldn't dream of it." Johnny said, not looking away from the unconscious child's face. "Risky, doing this, I know, but oh, so worth it." he grimaced, blowing away a trickle of perspiration that was rolling down into his eye.

DeSoto snuggled on Johnny's belt to the anchor point he had created above them all and hooked him in securely. "Okay."

Gage let go and hung arms and legs limp in instant relief. A few seconds later, he deftly applied the girl's tourniquet after hugging her to himself with his legs.

Roy climbed back up half a foot on his rope and got on Tasha's head long enough to insert the short airway and get in another fast primary assessment. "She's open, but panting." he reported. "Color's still fair." he said putting on the child's harness and belt. "But I wouldn't count on it staying that way." DeSoto reported. "Pulse's 120 and weak."

Gage made a noise of frustration. "Are you going up top to take some of the pressure off this hand?"

Roy tilted his helmet out of his way as he glanced up to where she was firmly trapped by metal. "Yeah.." he decided. "The monkey bars on your side of her are still okay. Here." he said, passing off a pediatric ambu bag that he had stuffed inside of his jacket. "She might need this before the engine arrives."

Johnny took the manual breather, holding the bag valve mask in between his teeth while he cut away the clothes covering Tasha's injury.

"This, too!" DeSoto told him, passing off a small adjustable cervical collar.

Johnny sized and fitted the collar snugly into place to immobilize Tasha's head firmly for the lifting move to come.

Roy slowly, inch by inch, made his way on top of and over the section of steel pipework that hadn't snapped and warped into failure. "Is she set down there?" DeSoto yelled down.  
"I'm gonna take her weight off that arm in a few seconds." he warned.

"Yeah. Yeah." Gage answered. "Then bring me up a little so I can ventilate her. She's starting to get suppressed too much on her inhalations."

Roy hurried and got the job done. Once he was satisfied that Johnny was comfortable and able to carry out his end of things, Roy concentrated on learning how the girl's left hand was pinned around the twisted metal rods that used to be the climbing struts of the elevated jungle gym. He marked a second written time in ink right on the girl's skin above Gage's tourniquet when he released the band for a few moments. DeSoto retightened it to halt Tasha's active bleeding once he saw that her hand and some of the unfractured fingers and knuckles blossomed back into pink shades.

"What's she gonna need?" Johnny asked Roy as he gave the girl an assisted breath of air on the bag.

Roy sighed, thinking hard. "Just a sawzall. If we shear the main beam on her end and these two grip bars tangling up her hand, she'll come free." he replied.

"Good deal,..uh,..an update..." Gage gasped tiredly. "Her chest's still clear. Find anything else on her?"

"No. Nothing. Just that hand, those three fingers and the arm we already know about." Roy told him.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sirens grew in the distance and soon Engine 51 roared into view followed by Ladder Truck 9. The two trucks pulled up at the edge of the school yard. Hank Stanley and the captain of the Quint ran up to get info from Squad 51's paramedics in person.

Hank put a hand to his mouth for shouting when he saw that Roy and Johnny's hands were far too busy for portable radio use. "What's her condition and situation?" he yelled up to them.

"Poor breather. Hypovolemic shock!" Johnny shouted down. "Get permission for a couple of I.V.s, Cap, for a nine year old female."

At the same time, Roy got the ladder company captain's attention. "Get a sawzall in the bucket.  
A peds backboard with her in the basket will be the fastest way down."

Johnny's list kept coming. "And bring a splint with ya. For her upper arm, hand and shoulder." he added.

Cap did them one better. "And a second paramedic team to take over for you once she's on the ground. You both are getting depleted too long strengthwise to be allowed to do any transporting." Stanley ordered, seeing how much Roy and Gage were mouth breathing through growing fatigue despite their safety belts and supporting ropes. "Kelly, Stoker, go up with nine's men in the basket. Bring the squad's I.V. box with that spineboard and a universal air splint with a ton of elastic bandages. Take over ventilations while nine's crew cuts her free and immobilizes her.... Roy is she fully secured?" he asked, meaning both Tasha's airway and her dangling position.

"Yes!" DeSoto shouted.

"All right." Hank waved. "Her ambulance is on the way and your relief's coming in one. Hang in there. I got Lopez on the biophone to Rampart right now."

DeSoto gestured affirmation as he began checking and rechecking all three of the anchor points he had rigged for supporting everybody in the air. Then he contented himself with resting a few monitoring fingers against the rapid pulse flickering fitfully in Tasha's throat.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Rampart this is Engine 51." began Marco from where he crouched on the street a little way from the active rescue scene. Already, he could see sparks flying as the stricken child was slowly untangled and sawed away from the collapsed playground cage on the second level. "How do you read?" Lopez hailed.

Dixie McCall toggled the base station's reply switch. ##Unit calling in, go ahead.##

"Rampart, we've a little girl trapped by the left hand with possible limb and finger fractures and severe hemorrhaging. She's unconscious. Airway, bleeding and breathing are under effective manual control. She's still undergoing extrication at this time. Our E.T.A. to the ground is..." Lopez looked up and eyeballed their rescue team's progress. They were in the midst of a coordinated move sliding the girl onto a roped in backboard inside the ladder bucket. "....about five minutes. She has on one tourniquet."

##10-4, 51.## McCall replied. ##What's your child's approximate age?##

"Nine or ten years old, Rampart." Marco replied.

##Start two large bore lines of Lactated Ringers at 20 cc's per kg. Continue supporting her respirations, supplementing with pure oxygen as soon as it becomes available. Establish an ET when warranted. Obtain baseline vital signs, get an EKG reading and add direct pressure to the wound site if the tourniquet still doesn't appear to be working well enough for you. 51, fly her in, doctor's orders.## she said as Joe Early,  
standing next to her, made twirling motions in the air while reading her notes. ##We'll have vascular and orthopedic surgeons waiting on arrival.##

"Ten four, Rampart. Two large bore of Ringers Lactate, treat for shock and transport out by chopper. We'll re-establish communication with you once she's in the air." Marco shared, still watching the firemen working above him.

##We're standing by.## Joe said.

Lopez dropped the biophone receiver into its box and jogged to the engine. He switched on the loud speaker inside the Ward La France's cab. "Engine 51 to Squad 51. I've our victim's med orders. Two large bore of LR at 20 and we've a go ahead for an ET if necessary. I'll have her O2 waiting." he said using the roof megaphone speaker's boosted amplification.

He paused until Gage and Roy both looked up and nodded acquiescence.

Then Marco switched the hand mic's radio frequency to Cap's main HT channel. "Engine 51 to HT 51. Rampart wants an evac by chopper."

"Gotcha, pal!" Stanley shouted to him out loud from the other side of the ladder truck. Hank immediately got off his portable's incident command channel tuned in to the bucket firemen and shifted to L.A.'s main fire frequency in order to notify them of a change in their call from ground to air support.

Roy and Johnny had Tasha safely intubated and on the ground by the time the second paramedic squad arrived to take over her care and the rapid flight in to Rampart. Unoccupied firemen assured a clear landing zone for Copter Two as she landed in the school's empty soccer field.

The medic grabbing the hanging bags of I.V. colloid from Roy's hand shouted something over the growing 'thwap' of the helicopter's whirling blades as they approached the bird's loading doors. "Got her name yet?"

"Yeah. Here's her parental consent from the principal's office." DeSoto said, pointing under the head of the blood stained child's backboard. "First name's Tasha."

"O.K." waved the medic.

His partner took over Gage's bag squeezed ventilations. He eyeballed the blood that was drying on Gage's shirt and pants. "How much blood loss?" he asked.

Johnny shook his head marginally. "800 cc's. She's losing no more. Tourniquet on her upper left arm needs releasing in three." he yelled holding up the same number of fingers.

"All right." he said, patting Johnny on the shoulder in acceptance. "We got her."

The two medics waved off Squad 51 as Ladder Nine firefighters helped load the child's board and the new paramedics' rescue squad gear into the hot running, waiting helicopter.

When Copter Two was just a dot on the skyline, Johnny collapsed onto his butt to start a serious resting period in an attempt to cool himself off. Roy plopped down right next to him as they watched Engine 51 and Ladder 9 tidy up the scene and playground sand before the police moved in with their cordoning tape perimeter barrier that would seal off the area for future city investigators.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"That was quite a spectacle, gentlemen." said the principal, handing the two exhausted paramedics paper cups full of ice water. "I'm just sorry this wasn't a harmless demonstration like everything else you did today."

Gage and Roy nodded their thanks for the cold drinks. "That was definitely NOT by the book." Gage grinned. "But,.. like you, I'm glad everything turned out okay." Johnny smiled cordially.

"So am I." piped up Captain Stanley meaningfully. He hefted up Roy, Johnny and the little girl's life belts significantly.

Johnny held up his hands in apology. "Won't happen again, Cap. I promise." he replied, straight faced and serious. "That's one hot doggin' it experience I never, ..ever want to live out again."

The principal chuckled. "Oh, yeah? Too bad. They sure enjoyed it." he said, pointing over his shoulder with one of his thick thumbs.

Roy, Johnny and Cap glanced up and over in that direction.

From every playground facing window, all the firemen saw a jumble of excited, cheering faces of school children who were celebrating what they had just witnessed first hand in what they thought was simply another phase of their fire department demo day.

Chet Kelly accorded them a comical little bow, doffing his helmet with flair as he stooped to acknowledge their accolade, making every one of the kids laugh out loud.

Still giggling tiredly, Johnny realized he was receiving a couple of smacks on the shoulder.  
It was Roy. Gage turned around to look at him.

"Come on." Roy said. "Let's get you cleaned up and into a new uniform before all those kids get too close of a look at ya. Stoker's got a charged hose laid out with your name on it. There are fresh uniforms in the squad. I put them there in case we got all smucked up for some reason before we finally got here to give our presentation."

Painfully, Johnny got to his feet. "Heh. Well, I remembered to bring extras, too." he shared,  
donning the jacket Cap hastily handed to him to cover up his bloody shirt. "The only thing we'll have problems with now is figuring out whose is who's."

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A couple of minutes later the frantic playground chaperone from earlier gathered up both empty water cups from the two paramedic's grips. "Is Tasha going to be okay?"

Roy raised his eyebrows empathetically when he saw the woman's lower lip begin to quiver with worry. "Yes. Most definitely. She only had that nasty gash and a couple of broken fingers to reset." he reassured her. "Nothing that a month or two's time spent in a cast won't fix."

"Oh, that's a relief. I thought she was going to die." admitted the young woman.

Gage regarded her with gentle amusement as he wrung out his hair under the shower Mike was giving him as he peeked from around the corner of the engine. "That was never in the cards, ma'am, all thanks to you. Your fast action, probably saved her life." he told her gratefully, sputtering a little under the hose spray.

"Really? Oh, my gosh. That's - that's quite a surprise." the woman gushed.

"Oh? How so?" asked Roy.

The woman wrung her hands self consciously. "Well, you see, I've never taken a first aid course in a formal setting my whole life. All I've ever learned is just from watching you firemen from time to time when you come to school here and give the kids all your paramedic demonstrations." she admitted. "I guess some of that know-how must have rubbed off a little."

"I guess." said the out-of-sight Johnny happily, realizing that his previously boring day teaching children fire-lore hadn't proved to be as useless as he had thought. "That's cool."

"REAL cool, ma'am." added Chet. "Cap, I'll go put the real gear away to buy us time until the fellas get all gussed up again so they can go back inside to salvage the fake stuff." Kelly offered.

"Okay, Chet. I'll put us available in ten." said Hank.

"Well, see you all next year." said the playground assistant. "I'm going to go wash up, too. I'm sticky in places I'd rather not think about too much."

"Want some disinfectant?" Marco offered. "We have peroxide bottles in the squad."

"No thanks. I've decided I'm going to go scrub every pore I have with plenty of soap and hot water under a shower in the girl's locker room." she said, waving and walking away.

"See you, ma'am. And thanks.." Roy shouted after her.

"No, thank you." she fired back, disappearing through a side access door.

The firemen paused, recounting their lucky stars.

Then Mike piped up.  
"Better make it fifteen minutes until we're 10-8, Cap." said Stoker after a moment. "Gage and DeSoto are liable to get mobbed by the kids again every step of the way."

"Is that a fact?" said Cap with an amused expression. He caught the principal's firm but sympathetic nod of agreement. "All right, how about... you, Kelly and Lopez go on ahead. Go in and run a little interference for them in backup moral support. There's gonna be no stopping along the way to answer questions from anybody once you're in there." Cap chuckled.

"Yeah, they've already been answered." said Gage, a little testily as he undressed behind the shielding bulk of the engine, suddenly feeling the garbage ember seared hole on the back of his soiled uniform shirt as the wind cooled down the water drying there.

"Don't worry. It'll be a piece of cake." said Chet, rubbing his hands together confidently.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Piece of cake he says...." grumbled Gage. "The only piece of cake I want is the one I didn't get because we got caught in a crowd of nosy kids anyway. Roy, see? We got here too late for me to eat any." Johnny moaned at him.

DeSoto narrowed his eyes as he folded his elbows over his arms thoughtfully when he saw the long vat uner the sweets sign full of nothing but ice and a few calcified dishes of Jello. "Tell you what. I'll buy you an ice cream cone instead." he offered.

Johnny sighed and planted his face into both of his palms, propped up by his elbows.  
"No, thanks." he sighed miserably.

"Hiya fellas!" greeted a warm silky voice brightly. It was Dixie, carrying a late lunch snack from the buffet line.

"Hi, Dixie.." returned Roy, smiling in surprise.  
"Oh....hi..." said Johnny without any enthusiasm.

Dixie sat down in between the two paramedics who were still parked in front of their empty plates. "Geez. What's his problem?" she asked Roy, hooking a thumb at Johnny.

"Nothing." Gage shrugged.

"Uh huh.. And I got some swamp land for ya for sale in Florida." Dixie replied.

Roy sighed with a tolerant smile at their friend and head nurse.  
"He saved a life today."

Dixie blinked. "Okay. So why isn't he happy about that?" she asked dryly still gesturing a finger in Gage's direction.

Johnny made a face.

Roy elaborated and met her stare of disbelief. "He missed dessert doing it."  
said DeSoto casting a hand over to the pie-less, well picked over dessert area.

Dixie didn't move visibly, but the corner of her mouth crooked up more than just a little. Then she cocked her head at Johnny. "What did you miss getting yourself, Johnny?" she asked.

Gage still looked stung. "Coconut cream pie." he growled at her. And Gage was a little clueless as to why Dixie would even be asking the question.

"With extra nonpareil sprinkles." added DeSoto, grinning. He was catching on far faster than his partner.

"I'll be right back." McCall winked at the two of them. She rose from their little round table and disappeared through a swinging door attached to the hospital cafeteria's kitchen room.

"Where's she going?" Johnny asked sharply.

Roy eyed him up, still smiling. Then he leaned forward to meet Gage eye to eye in a close stare. He opened his mouth. "Doctors aren't the only miracle workers around here."

"Huh?" Gage blinked, totally confused as he took a sip of coffee. His eyes lit up in complete surprise when Dixie returned with not one, but two heaping slices of pie on a freshly frosted platter. Johnny immediately snatched up his dinner fork.

Dixie held up an admonishing finger. "Ah, ah, ah..You know the rules. One dollar,  
pre-paid for the cashier, out where she can see it, in advance." McCall ordered.

Gage slammed down his money so fast that the dishes on their blue plastic table jumped up and rattled. "Wow, thanks, Dix." he said, eating hungrily. "How'd you manage this? I'm.....almost speechless." Gage smiled crookedly.

Dixie chuckled. "Well... Do you know of my knack for getting apples out of that touchy buttoned fruit machine in the nurse's lounge that has a tendency to always deliver oranges down its dispensing chutes?"

"Yeah, Joe tells us that whole sordid tale every time he finds himself stuck with another orange." Roy answered her.

Dixie angled her head, still smug and highly pleased with herself. "I've learned my little hip nudging trick works far better on live chefs than it does on cold heartless machinery."

"I'll bet."  
"It sure did." the two paramedics said. And they laughed uproariously.

Johnny was licking the last of the coconut whipped cream off the back of his nearly inhaled lunch fork when the tones went off on the portable squad radio resting beside them.

##*Beep.*Beep.* Squad 51, what's your status?## asked L.A.

Roy replied while Johnny hastily threw out more dollar bills to pay for all three of their meals.  
"Squad 51, L.A. We're available." DeSoto replied back.

##10-4. Stand by for a response. *Beep.*Beep.*Beep.* Squad 51, with Engine 51. Gas leak at a warehouse. 1711 North Emmett Drive. 1711 North Emmett Drive. Cross street,  
Nass. Time out : 16:34.##

Gage snatched the radio out of Roy's hands eagerly.  
"10-4. Uh, we're 10-8 from Rampart Hospital. Our E.T.A. is.." Johnny looked at his watch and did a few calculations as he traced their route out on the mental map of the county he held in his head. "...six minutes. KMG-365." he acknowledged.

Just a second later, they all heard a like echo when Captain Stanley copied the call and began rolling out with his pumper crew.

Roy and Johnny wiped their mouths with their napkins and rose from their seats quickly, grabbing up the wire wrapped EKG monitor and oyxgen apparatus they had wheeled in to lunch with them. Johnny paused at the automatically opening door of the cafeteria leading back into the main hospital proper. He deftly balanced a gear box in each hand. "Say, Dixie!" Gage hollered out. "Did I tell you that I love ya?"

Dixie raised an eyebrow craftily over the rim of the teacup she was sipping in pure creature comfort as she nursed the steaming beverage in between laced fingers."Over the resupplying counter? Frequently!" she yelled back at him, bubbling in mirth. She waved them on and away very firmly around her hysterical giggles. "I'll see you tomorrow, fellas. I'm going home in a few minutes.."

"Lucky you." Roy replied.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Station 51 began racing to the scene from two different directions.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Photos: None.

*  
From: "Pat or Cassidy or Jeff" Date: Thu Feb 8, 2007 1:22 pm Subject: That Loving Doctor Speak

Roy looked at Johnny askance once they were on Wilshire Boulevard and flowing through traffic that was scattering before their lights and sirens. "Shall we take a bet on that?"

"Take a bet on what?" Johnny asked, lifting his chin from his palm where it was propped up by the elbow on the open window frame of the squad.

"On whether or not we get to this place in exactly six minutes." Desoto said cheekily.

"No way. No bet, Roy. I'm not that stupid." Johnny said empathetically, making a face and chuckling.

"Why not? Don't you trust your innate skills of arrival estimations?"

"I trust myself just fine, pally. I'm not betting because I just know...that we aren't gonna get there on time." Gage explained as if it were the most natural answer in the universe.

Roy's face folded in sheer puzzlement as he rounded his next turn. "You know, Johnny, some days I think I've got you all figured out, and then along comes something just like this that's puts another irritating twist on things." DeSoto said with a little heat.

Gage let loose a tolerant exasperated sigh. "Roy, I'm not betting on our E.T.A. because I don't trust my guessing. I'm not betting because I know we're gonna get there ......earlier than six minutes." he finally confessed to his flustered partner.

Roy blinked. Then his cherubic face opened into an incredulous smile. "Huh. Making so you're making yourself sound good for the radio logs." he figured out. "You know, I know that you know that the engineer's exams are coming up again..." he mentioned suspiciously.

Johnny's mouth flopped open in stunned surprise."I'm not going for a promotion! Geez, Roy. Quit reading mountains out of mole hills. For crying out loud, so I didn't take you up on a bet for once in my life, is that such a bad thing? It's not the end of the world just because I did something different today."

"You never know." DeSoto said mysteriously, turning his attention back onto the road. "It very well could be, knowing you."

The Converta-Com tuned in at their knees suddenly gave voice with a triple beep. ##L. Squad 51 and Engine 51, cancel. Citizens' report of gas leak is unfounded according to a local municipal facility who show and are reporting all sensors as nominal. Units responding, return. ##

Roy threw out an indignant hand at the radio. "See? What do you call that which just happened right there? I tell ya, things are changing already." DeSoto said worriedly superstitious.

It was Johnny's turn to look at Roy oddly. "Is Chet rubbing off on you or something? You're getting all worked up over absolutely nothing, Roy."  
Then he immediately cut himself off with a chiding remark. "Geesh, now I'm starting to sound a lot like you." he said throwing up his hands. He took off his helmet and hung in on its hook behind his head with a bang.

"So parallels happen." Roy defended himself. "We do spend every working day,  
awake or asleep, together. Maybe our copy catting cover is just another way to cope with the stresses of our job." he said, his voice levelling off as he, too,  
took off his helmet as he flicked off their lights and sirens and slowed to normal cruising speed.

Johnny did an immediate about face, thinking thoughtfully. "You know, I've never thought about it in quite that way before. Wow, you may be right. Maybe we're taking after each other because that means we get along so well."

"Don't bet the rent on it." mumbled DeSoto under his breath, not smiling.

"Okay, okay. You win. I confess. I really wanted to take that bet with you on our E.T.A. I just... well, I don't know WHAT I was doing exactly, I just..." Johnny's voice trailed off. "...didn't wanna do it, that's all." he said softly.

Silent seconds spread like years inside the rescue squad. Then DeSoto opened his mouth... "Awwww, Johnny. That was really nice of ya." said Roy, genuinely tickled to death. "Wow, finally, there's a guy who actually decides not to take his best friend to the cleaners when an opportunity presents itself. That's- that's..."

"Don't get all mushed up about it. I'm still feeling funny about this the way it is."  
Gage told him sourly. "So shut up now while you still can." Johnny warned, holding out both hands empathetically.

Roy buttoned lip immediately, grinning like a banshee as he gripped the steering wheel. "So things are all right in the world after all.." he snuck in.

Gage glared at him. "Just...*Shhhh*" he hissed, shifting back to the window in an attempt to ignore his other "half."

Roy moused down.

##*Beep.*Beep.*Beep.* Squad 51 with Engine 24. Possible heart attack...##

"Here we go..." said Johnny, grabbing out his notepad. "See? I didn't mess up a single solitary thing." he said to his partner as the address droned on. Gage flicked on their reds and siren with one of his green pens from where he sat.  
"So, aren't you going to answer that?" he said, jerking a head at the radio.

Roy pursed his lips in irritation.  
"I will... I will... Give me a little time to turn us around here first." he said defensively while he eyeballed all of the suddenly startled-into-attention cars surrounding them. He grabbed the radio mic and brought it to his lips. Looking down for a moment,  
he toggled it. "L.A., Squad 51 is responding.. KMG 36--"

"*Gasp...*" came an involuntary noise.

Roy heard the sudden intake of horrified breath from Johnny and got an instant chill the second he looked up again. Color drained out of Roy's face at the same terrifying sight and he froze then, finding himself unable to move his one free hand that was still holding onto the wheel. He saw a flash of an image in his head.

A white, middle sized sedan was barrelling towards them... its brakes and steering control inexplicably gone out, swerving into their lane.

Roy registered a brief glimpse of terrified eyes and what he thought was the open, red gaping mouth of the other driver and the flash of silver finger rings and earrings, when the impact came at forty miles an hour.

**CrrraaAAASSSHHHHhhhhhh!**

Squad 51's front end crumpled sickeningly, throwing Roy and Johnny into the dashboard snugging along the windshield, despite the fact that they were both belted in.

Blackness descended when both cars spun in their mutual dance of destruction and eventually came to a halt along the side of the road under some trees.

-  
It was two minutes later when the first police squad car pulled up after receiving a citizen's payphone call about an automobile accident.

Vince Howard and his lady partner of two years pulled up rapidly one hundred feet ahead of the crash to allow a good safety margin. As he got out, Vince had trouble registering the fact that one of the vehicles was somehow very familiar, big, and red.

He shook himself back to the present when his partner gripped his arm near the mangled rescue squad after she had spoken with a male bystander who had stopped to help its passengers, for details.

"Looks like they were on a response when they hit that car. I'll call it in." she said. Then she leaned into the folded up, steaming, windshield shattered squad once more to speak with the male passer by who was with a forehead bloody, weakily moaning Roy. "Keep holding that paramedic's head still, and keep an eye out for any sign of fire. If you see smoke starting up, let me know." she told the bystander. Then she turned back to Vince, gripping her shoulder radio mic. "I put him on the oxygen I grabbed from our trunk. He's saying that he can't catch his breath. The other one's not awake but he's breathing normally. Can you see to the other car?"

"I can do that.." said Vince as his partner called for additional help over their frequency. Shaking away numbness, he ran for the other car that had flipped over and impacted a guard rail. Grimacing, Howard saw that there wasn't much left of it. ::I hate Volvos...they fall apart like egg shells every time.:: he thought. ::Okay..Just how many others are we going to have here?::

A hail from the violated rescue squad's fire department radio began calling out their emergency to the closest engine crew seconds later. ::Engine 51?:: thought the patrolman. ::I'm glad it's them.:: he said as he began crawling on gloves and shoes around the wreckage, trying to see inside the ruined white car. ::Looks like one more. Someone in a red checkered shirt.:: He reached inside, trying to feel for signs of life, but he couldn't reach far enough. ::D*mn, there's too much debris in the way.:: Howard realized.  
He rose and got to his feet. And his radio. "Dispatch, this is Sierra Bravo Five. We've a total of three victims at this MVA, one inaccessible." he reported, hearing his own voice in stereo as it echoed between shoulder radioes. Then he got clear of the car and started directing traffic. "Please notify Fire Department Headquarters that this accident involves one of their own vehicles. Their B.C. needs to be informed. Also send two additional squad cars for traffic control." Vince began to shiver unpleasantly when he heard something else over his shoulder.

##Squad 51, this is L.A. Do you copy? Your previous outgoing transmission was interrup---## Vince heard Squad 51's radio abruptly cut off as his partner tore away the wires leading to its power source to end any sparking risk.

-  
Birdsong reigned after multiple squad cars first off blocked then redirected curious onlookers away from the crash. Silence filled the air briefly...

Engine 51 approached from the east, going full out. Hank Stanley was inwardly worked up to a fever pitch when he learned the news that their collision call was involving his own rescue squad. He immediately heard L.A. send out another one. ::Squad 24? Sh*t, they're still at least seven minutes out.:: he worried. "Stoker, park it right here. Let us out.  
Then run the Ward down the block with two inch and a half's. I'm smelling gas. Kelly, charge his lines and then get on an immediate washdown. Marco, check out Roy and Johnny. They can't be too bad, the people around them aren't hurrying too much. I'll grab the car victim and see what we've got. Mike as soon as you're free again, connect with Rampart and let them know what we have as soon as we learn it. Salvage what gear you can from the squad. Pop open all the compartment doors with tools to get at it if you have to. We're gonna need everything they've got in there. Set out what you save along the side of the road."  
Hank heard his men accept their assignments with alacrity. Stanley got on his HT to L.A. "L.A. Engine 51, we're on scene. Respond an additional alarm. We've fuel spilling. Also roll out urban rescue. One of our two vehicles is heavily damaged with the driver entrapped." he added when he saw Vince's hand signal telling him of that fact.

As the fire engine's cab rolled to a halt, everybody got out and started running.  
"Get into scba as soon as things are good and wet!" he told them.

Cap ran to the radiator steaming white car with a pry bar. He shouted to Howard as he set his air bottle close by onto the ground. "Vince, move yourself and your partner away a hundred feet! There's a gas smell blowing downwind of you coming from this car."

Vince replied. "There is?! Ok, must have just started." he gripped his microphone.  
"Sally. Get yourself and that civilian well clear. We're done." Then he let it go.  
"Hank, this one's bad. I can't even make out the driver clearly or get anywhere inside."

"We'll handle it. Just keep yourselves safe." he ordered. "Thanks for what you've done."

"No problem." Howard said, walking away to push traffic back even further.

Stoker finished laying hose. He got on the pumper panel and quickly connected up the flow they would need at top volume.

Cap crouched by the most intact passenger door and started work on it with his crow bar. His handy talkie crackled. ##HT 51, this is Kelly. A g*d d*mn*d BMW is parked in front of our f*ck*ng hydrant. Permission to smash through windows?##

"Do it! We'll have the police write their citation later!" Cap grunted back at him over the airwaves. Soon, he got the upside down car door open using sheer muscle.  
He nearly fell when it finally gave way. Taking off his helmet to see better, Hank slid into the seat to peer down at the body he could see crumpled along the floor boards, lying face up. His heart just about stopped in his chest when he easily recognized the woman. "Oh, my word.." he gasped. Quickly, peeling off his gloves, he dug several fingers into the inner groove of her neck. A weak coratid met him, and faint sounds of wet gurgling. As he squirmed lower down, he radioed out. "HT 51, this is Engine 51. I need airway help and I need it now."

##I'm coming with the O2 apparatus.## reported Stoker.

Hank quickly began a careful jaw thrust maneuver as he felt Chet start to lay down a full fanning spray first over and then down and out in circles around him. "Kelly, it's Dixie!" he shouted as he opened up her mouth with a couple of thumbs. He ignored the spray of blood that suddenly misted up violently towards his face.

"What?!" Chet startled. "Ohmyg-- How's she d--"

Hank spoke quietly, firmly.  
"She's alive, but in trouble. Just keep washing everything and everybody down, fast as you can." he said, turning his head, trying to see the extent of her injuries.

"But..."

"I've got her under control so far and Stoker's coming to help me. Your job is to concentrate on what you're doing. When the other company gets here, they'll pick up our other charged hose and they'll soon be joining you." Stanley said, shifting his fingers' position slightly so McCall's fitful breaths came easier. "Keep at it!" he ordered as her desperate gasping began to slow satisfactorily.

"Yes, sir.." Chet said, worried and serious. He redoubled his efforts.

-  
Back at the squad, Marco pulled DeSoto's oxygen mask away from his mouth and shut off the tiny bottle the policewoman had laid at Roy's feet when a fresh wave of gasoline stung his nose. He nodded approval mentally when he saw that the radio had already been disconnected.  
He felt Johnny's wrist, even as he laid a hand on Roy. "Hey.. can you guys hear me? Roy?...Johnny?"

Gage began stirring and moving his legs. "Ohhh..." he said, opening his eyes.

"Easy. You've both been in a wreck. Don't try to move yet." Lopez cautioned as he pulled out his radio. He stepped back from the squad, until he no longer smelled fuel, before he transmitted. "HT 51 to Engine 51. They're conscious. I've got a gas leak over here, too. Once I check them over better, I'll wash this down.."

Marco frowned when Cap's reply didn't come, only Stoker's. ##He copies#  
said the engineer. There was the hiss of active suctioning behind his voice.  
## I'll let them know. Cap wants all O2 kept off until we get a chance to snip both batteries under the hoods.##

"Understood."

All four of Station 51's firemen looked up when the sounds of approaching sirens began to grow in the west. There were two sets of them, an engine's and the hastily summoned second rescue squad' hurrying squad's voice almost brought tears to Marco's eyes when he began to hear its sweet familarity.  
::Come on, come on. Rush your butts!:: he thought at them.

Marco began sweeping down Roy and Johnny's arms and legs, looking for free flowing blood past the cuts on their faces as he talked with them to learn how out of it they really were. ::Neither are speaking yet.:: he realized. Lopez found and wrapped an oozing deep gash on Roy's right calf with Coban elastic from the engine's first aid kit to stop its heavy bleeding.

##Engine 99 and Squad 24 to Engine 51. We're one minute out. Urban rescue reports their arrival in three minutes.## said 99's captain.

Hank Stanley nodded at Stoker to acknowledge them. When he was finished, Cap spoke again. "Get her shirt off. My foot near her chest's getting wet with something. She may be injured there."

"Is she responsive at all?"

"No." said Cap.

Stoker reached into the airways box he had brought and inserted an oral airway Dixie's size around Cap's supporting hands. "Ok, this is in. She has no gag. Let me check." he said, grabbing out a pair of shears. He began cutting and feeling quickly. He stopped when he felt a return of moist air misting his hand from a solitary ragged hole punched into her left side. "It's a pneumothorax. There's only one. Sealing it off." he said, laying a firm palm over it and pressing down.

Cap let go of Dixie's head without moving it once he saw the airway was doing its job ok. Then he, too, began grabbing for fast supplies. He tore off the foil wrap on a petroleum pad. "Here. Use this instead. It'll work better."  
said Stanley, passing it over.

Mike did and soon was freed up to go run for the biophone.

Stanley looked up at him as his engineer left the car.  
"Pulse is 120, respirations...you've already counted. I'm detecting no pulses at her wrists or above the elbows." Hank hollered. "Looks like that initial suctioning was all she needed."

"For now. Let me know what else she's got going on, Cap, as soon as you can. I'll be on the curb." Mike told him.

"I will. I'm getting the rest of these off." he said, beginning on her jeans. "Leave a shock sheet next to me."

"It's already there. And yes, I got all the medical gear, oxygen tanks and air bottles out of, or off of, the squad. I left just the heavy equipment. Their two stokes and all the backboards I tossed over onto the lawn."

"Okay, pal. Go update Rampart and Squad 24 with the statuses on our victims."

Stoker hefted up his scba gear and put it on. He patted Chet on the shoulder for doing the same thing even though he was encumbered with a hose, as he jogged by. "She's still breathing on her own." he shouted.

"Ok. Good to hear." said Chet and some of his creases on his forehead eased out of active worry. "Thanks."

A few minutes later, Chet overheard a terrifying transmission from his crewmate. "Rampart, we have two Code I and a female victim of a head on frontal automobile accident. We've no paramedics at the scene except our engine crew. We need a doctor a.s.a.p. for an entrapped critical, long term."

There was a pause, until Chet heard the statement that thoroughly chilled his blood.

"...Rampart, the second and third victims ARE our paramedic crew." Stoker swallowed.

-  
Marco looked up at a muffled poof just as Squad 24 and 99's Crown rolled up.  
"Fire! Hey Cap! Fellas! We've got fire in the squad's engine block!" he yelled,  
shooting out of 51's crumpled cab to snatch up the hose Stoker had left out and ready for him. He could see the beginnings of flames licking up tentatively around the hood. Their heat was already melting and curling up the windshield wipers as he began sloshing a sharp spray of water up and down the squad's front end.

Cap heard him and immediately dashed over, leaving Dixie warmly covered. He waved at a firefighter climbing off 99's Tillerman's spot to go attend her.

He forced open Gage's side door with the pry bar and cast it aside. "Johnny, hey.  
Listen to me. Is your back or neck hurting you?" Hank shouted, holding both hands on either side of the Native American paramedic's face to get his attention. "You're going to have to be moved fast because we're on fire."

"Huh?? Whaa..?" Johnny said groggily. "Us? Didn't...didn't know we were in a fire.."

"No, the squad. You crashed. It's starting to burn, John. We're getting you out."

"A crash?!" Gage startled. " Uh,.. *ow* I'm...I'm not hurting anywhere important.."  
he moaned. "Go ahead and pick me---"

Cap wasted no time laying one of Johnny's arms over his shoulders in order to get him onto his feet. They began to get out of the squad. "Brice!" Stanley yelled. "Get DeSoto out! We're showing smoke! Kelly, protect the white car with everything you've got but move back from us!"

Craig Brice, just pulling on his work gloves, hastened to comply.

A couple of 99's men got on Marco's hose to help him, and two others,  
but 51's hood wouldn't open at their jimmying. "Here.." said Lopez, passing off his nozzle stream to a pair of them. "I've got our jaws over there. I can pop it open in two seconds. She's already running hot."

Paramedic Firefighter Craig Brice slid in behind Roy, sliding a supporting arm over his chest to hold him still. "DeSoto. Can you hear me?"

"Uh..." Roy groaned, flopping his head back limply against the other paramedic. It was clear he didn't recognize Craig in the slightest.

Brice pinched him hard on the flesh underneath his upper arm.

"Oww!"

"I know that hurt. Answer me! Did you hurt yourself past this one wrapped leg I'm seeing?"

Roy startled as awareness returned, along with a complete memory.. "The other car. Somebody's hurt! Johnny and I hit-- I've got to get over there.." he gasped.

Brice didn't mince words. "Fine. You're ready to leave. Come with me now before we fry." he said, helping Roy get out of the squad as carefully and quickly as he could. DeSoto moved, slinging an arm over Craig's shoulder. He began limping immediately and soon, another firefighter ran over to help the two of them make their escape.

They got away painfully slow. Only Cap and Johnny were slower.

BoooOOOOMmmmm!

Squad 51 annihilated herself in an exploding fireball as a burning fuel line finally reached the gasoline tank.

The force of the explosion caught the backs of Hank and Johnny and they were cast to the ground.

"Cap, are you guys all right?!" Marco shouted, fighting back the spreading fire fiercely while the other pumper got ready to join him.

"Yeah, I'm ok.. I think Gage is, too." he reassured Lopez.  
Cap, protected by his helmet, rolled to his feet, but Johnny was lying face down and turning purple. He was not moving even though he was still awake.

Cap rolled him over in a spine safe line. "Easy, pal.. Got the wind knocked out of ya? It's all right. Just try to relax and it'll pass in a minute or so." he said, looking up to make sure Brice and DeSoto hadn't come to any more harm.

They were unscathed. Cap could see that Brice had already transferred DeSoto off to another man while he headed for the white car, loaded with his gear and some of Squad 51's.

Hank looked down and starting smiling encouragingly as Johnny struggled to breathe again. Hank took the hands that were lying on top of Gage's stomach into his own. "Can you do it yet? Are the spasms easing up?" he said, beginning to massage the constricted muscles around Johnny's waist.

Gage just squirmed on the ground and kept choking silently.

Stanley looked up. "Somebody get an ambu over here on the fly. My man needs some help on one until he recovers from a kick to the diaphragm."  
he said, tipping Johnny's head back to get him more comfortable. "Easy.  
Easy.. We'll do it for you. Quit fighting for a sec until we get you going on o2. Here it comes. Johnny, did you hear me?" he said as Chet and Brice's paramedic partner came rushing in to assist.

It took all three of them to hold the mask over Johnny's darkening face as he struggled in a panic until Cap held down his arms.

"Was he obstructed?" the paramedic asked.

"No.. no. Just winded." Hank grinned. "He's just scared. He should settle down once his lungs get some air. He's got other problems from the crash but nothing at all here breathing wise except this."

Finally, they got the bag working and Johnny's chest rose. Immediately,  
Gage calmed and went limp as dizziness from the squeeze valve's shot of pure O2 began coursing through him. He closed his eyes in relief and just let it happen as several more came and went.

Hank continued to massage the cramps rippling Gage's stomach into a tight ball until...Johnny began breathing again in deep, hungry gasps. "There.." Cap said, letting him go. "See? It's over. Just like I told you it would." he said watching the others switch out the bag for a positive pressure valve on demand only. "Now stay down and let Marve here check you out. Roy's fine,  
too. He's doing a little better than you, in fact. He's just asked about getting over to the other car. And don't worry about her. She's still alive."

Johnny nodded weakily on the ground and tried to get his eyes to focus on the faces ringing round him. "Who's...who's fault w--?" he broke off from shortness of breath.

"Nobody's.." said Cap empathetically. "There are droplets of brake fluid all over the street. It starts in a line trailing twenty feet away from the impact point.  
That car had no brakes to stand on when it ran that red light."

"What's her ...what's her condition?" Gage said, pushing the oxygen mask away briefly. He could feel himself growing stronger already.

Only now did Cap's light expression begin to falter. Kelly's completely caved in and that tipped Johnny off. "Who is she? Do we know her?" Gage asked,  
getting angry even as he caught the same question in Roy's eyes where he sat on the curb nearby next to a firefighter who was watching him.

DeSoto was fiddling absently with the cannula resting over his ears while his cut forehead was getting wrapped up in dressings.

Hank hung his head. "Yes..uh..yeah, we do, pal." he said honestly. "I'm afraid it's ...it's Miss McCall from the hospital."

Johnny lay stunned, struck speechless even as Roy was. Only there was a difference.  
DeSoto was mumbling a single sentence over and over again. "I saw her, Johnny.  
I saw her.. And I couldn't get out of the way..." he sobbed. Beginning to shiver,  
Roy let the fireman who was monitoring him lay him down before he passed out in shock. Blankets were tossed open, spread and used amply, but Johnny and Roy no longer were aware of them even though their eyes continued to blink and their sources of oxygen continued to flow.

A minute later, Johnny struggled to his feet.

Hank stopped Chet from restraining him. "Let him go. Let him go, pal. We can't force anything on him that he doesn't want." He said, pointing to 24's medic, who wasn't doing anything to stop Johnny's movements either. Then Stanley took the still unsteady Gage softly aside under his arm as he re-covered his shoulders with the fallen blanket. "What do you want to do until the ambulance gets here? You can do anything you want except go over there."

"The engine, Cap. I want to sit in the engine. Everybody's looking at me."  
Johnny said quietly, still thinking about Dixie.

"Okay. That's all right by us." Stanley accomodated. "We'll get you back on some O2 while you're sitting up in one of the seats." he said, making eye contact with the other paramedic, who was nodding his head in agreement. "And then both of you are going to submit to a complete examination, some vitals signs and maybe an EKG reading or two, okay, pal?"

"Is Roy coming with me?" Johnny asked, his eyes staring blearily.

"No, I think he's decided to stay right where he is for the moment." said Cap, seeing that Roy's eyes were closed where he lay on the grass in a vain attempt to forget the whole experience. "So getting going if you're going. I'll help you over there and then I'll have Chet here stay behind to keep an eye on you while you're getting checked out and treated."

"Like I have any choice.." said Johnny meekly. "The chief's here." he said, pointing at the Battalion car that was just pulling up. "And I know HE'LL just back you up on anything you decide about me to the max."

Hank smiled in amusement. "Remember, those were your words.."

-  
Stanley hurried on by DeSoto, where he lay on a cot getting loaded up by ambulance attendants and Brice's partner. He knelt by Craig, who was working feverishly over Dixie's still form. "How is she?"

"She'll do a lot better once we get her out of here. We have a lot of cutting to do before we free up her legs." said Brice.

"I'm still working on that. Urban rescue is still a half minute away. Don't worry about catching fire. 99's laid down foam. Anything else I can do for you? Your partner's about ready to take off with my two men for the hospital."

Craig immediately began a flow of oxygen through a non rebreather mask at the news of their passed fire danger. He deftly placed it over Dixie's face.  
"Yeah, know how to string up intravenous lines?" Brice asked him.

"I learned from the best.." he said about Roy and Johnny. "Gimme."  
he said, reaching for the boxed catheter set up and saline bag Craig had set out next to Dixie's head. "Stoker's already told Rampart the prelim report. All they need now..."

"... are the nitty gritty details." Brice finished for him. "Which they've just received about Miss McCall." he told Cap. Then his face became haunted. "They aren't too happy about who it is.."

"You told them?" Hank gaped.

"Yes, I did. It was the fastest way to get a hold of Dixie's medical chart,  
which her surgeon is doubtlessly going to need to see once we've successfully extricated her." Craig said simply.

"Fair enough. Who's flying out here to attend vigil?" Hank asked.

"Dr. Brackett."

Stanley sighed in relief. If Dixie had any chance of surviving her lung trouble, Kel was the one to pull her through it. "Ok, I'll send a man out to go meet him. Where's he landing?"

"I arranged for that used car lot a hundred feet to the north, Captain. See that orange, round Spirit of 76 rotating sign over there?" Brice asked without looking away from the ET tube he was attempting to thread down Dixie's windpipe. It wasn't going well.

"Got it. Need anything else?" said Cap distractedly. He didn't even notice when Craig gave up on establishing an advanced airway.

"Yes.. a full CPR standby crew. We stand a good chance of needing them if she's not out of here in an hour." Brice said, switching McCall back to an oropharyngeal and an active demand valve with which to boost her suddenly very weak breathing attempts."I'll need one of them in here right now to take over ventilating her. Her left lung's starting to collapse."

Hank frowned, casting his eyes to the active EKG monitor that was fluctuating an erratic heartbeat of 140. "She's fading that fast?"

"Not if I can help it." said Brice empathetically as he tore away the occlusive dressing Cap and Stoker had taped into place.

-  
"I want options and I want them now, gentlemen." said Kel, slamming his hand down on his desk inside his doctor's office. "I fly out in five minutes."

Joe Early and Mike Morton refused to be intimidated. They wanted to get some results in favor of Dixie's continued well being almost as badly as Dr. Brackett did.

Joe picked up the phone and made a fast phone call.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dr. Alonzo "Gonzo" Gates kissed his current girlfriend and her kids goodbye as he stumbled, pajamas and all, into his clothing at the foot of the stairs.

The statuesque model spoke up as she opened the front door. "Must you go in this late?"

"Honey.. Dixie McCall's a good friend of mine and any favor Kel Brackett says I might be able to swing for her is almost too little to ask. I owe that man my very career." Gonzo said empathetically.

"Ok, go. Then hurry back." she said, kissing him passionately.  
"Shall I let Trapper know where you're going?"

"He already knows. He's the second doctor Kel's team is calling in."  
said Gates. He got into his car and lifted up the car phone wired there. "Operator, please connect me up to Doctor Trapper John McIntyre of Mercy General, right away. This is a matter of life and death."

Seconds later, Gonzo Gates was speeding up the freeway towards Rampart Hospital and the surgical wards there.

It wasn't ten minutes later when Joe Early and Mike Morton got their counterparts from across town fully updated on Dixie's deteriorating condition. "Fellas, glad you came. Kel's already at the crash scene." said Dr. Early. "Here's the absolute latest medical data I have and this is coming directly from them. Would you mind stepping into the Base Station? You can talk to Kel directly in there via radio while you're reading all our notes."

"Right this way, gentlemen." said Mike Morton, indicating the way to walk with a cast out hand. "The fire department says she's almost free of the wreckage."

"How's she pinned in, doctor?" asked Trapper John, M.D. as he rubbed his bald pate and salt and pepper beard thoughtfully.

"By both legs, below the knees."

"Are there any other complications going on right now?" asked Gonzo Gates, the curly haired, brown eyed young doctor.

"Yes." replied Joe. "A very big one. She's developing a severe tension pneumothorax on the left side."

"Oh, that's not good." said the mild mannered soft spoken doctor who could have been Joe Early's twin in temperment. John leaned into the live EKG monitor displaying her circulatory vital signs. "Is she intubated?"

"Nope. They couldn't establish one." said Morton. "Brice says he's seeing too much swelling from soft tissue neck bruising to get one in."

"Is she ventilating ok otherwise?"

"Yeah, they're using an OPA and a demand valve. But she's still sitting at 86% PaO2 according to pulse oximetry even with a clearly patent airway."

Trapper frowned. "That's going to cause problems. Positive pressure's not the answer in the long run, it'll only worsen her perfusion over time due to inadvertant barotrauma or gastric distension."

"I'll tell Kel to switch it out for a bag valve mask." said Morton, thumbing down the base station's talk button. "Rampart to Squad 24. Do you read me?"

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The noise of the working sawzalls and K-12s were deafening as Marco,  
Stoker and Cap set to work splitting what was left of the car open above Dr. Brackett and Brice to get to the seat struts that were still trapping the nurse to the floor.

"Squad 24, go ahead." replied Craig swiftly, plugging his uncovered ear.

##Our consultants recommend switching out to a gentler delivery on ambu#  
suggested Morton.

Kel was overjoyed to hear his colleagues were at the hospital and beginning to prepare for Dixie's surgery. "I concur wholeheartedly, Brice." he said. "I was just about to have you change her over to something different. Get it done while I get this ready." he said, drawing out a long needle for Dixie's emergency pleural decompression. "What's her latest pressure?"

"She's....80 systolic with both I.V.s wide open." Brice rechecked by palpation.

"Are you absolutely sure she's got a tension pneumothorax working?" Kel asked again as he swabbed down her second intercostal space anteriorly on the same side as the torn hole they had found over her ribs.

"Most definitely. Yes, she does. She's quit all attempts at breathing on her own.  
She hyperresonant to percussion, and now there's this unilateral absence of breath sounds where there used to be distinctly audible rales on the right."  
said Craig. "And only now have I seen these signs of tracheal deviation."

"All right. That's the classic triad. Call someone in here to hold her still for us. I'm going in." ordered Dr. Brackett.

Craig got on his radio and Marco Lopez was the first one to answer him.  
He was soon there, protecting Dixie from adverse movement, while Kel advanced the thoracic needle down to its open hub. A sharp hiss of escaping air gushed out and then lessened bit by bit as the increased pressure inside Dixie's chest released out the needle. Kel kept it in for a few seconds more before he withdrew it.

Then he nodded at Craig to start ventilating her again.  
"See if you can splint her internally with the demand valve. I want to see if her lungs have reinflated ok." Brackett said. Brice hastened to take over for the fireman working the bag at her head while the doctor listened carefully at several places over Dixie's skin with his stethoscope. He looked up after a few delivered breaths and finally, he smiled. "Well, that did it. And I see absolutely no evidence here that she's flailed."

Brice nodded his head. "I didn't see any paradoxical motion either."

"Most likely her tension pneumo was brought on by a blunt rupture of a lung surface rather than by any lacerations inside from broken ribs." Kel looked relieved and actively happy for Brice's benefit. "Good call on that. There was every chance in H*ll that Dixie could have needed that chest tube. Only an x-ray or a doctor could have decided which was her best course of treatment. Glad you dragged me out here today. "

"We had to, doc. She's special." said Marco sheepishly.

"That she is. To me and just about everybody else I hear." he grinned. "Brice, run in more Normal Saline to counteract any internal chest bleeding I might have set off. Administer another 250 cc fluid bolus and titrate her two I.V.s accordingly until we get her to level off at a rock solid hemodynamic status level.  
I don't think she needs a rapid sequence intubation. She's tolerating the oral adjunct all by itself very well."

Brice called out a finding as he flipped a switch to get a new paper tracing of Dixie's slowing and now normalizing heart rhythm. "She's back in NSR, doctor. I'm seeing a regular rate of 90."

"Great news. I really didn't want to tangle with adenosine just to handle her wide width PSVT while we're still stuck in here. The ceiling's too low for cardiac compressions."

"Is she headed for surgery?" Marco asked, trading out the positive pressure for the bag again when Brackett waved at him.

"Yes. Her left lung's only partially back to snuff." he said sealing off Dixie's chest wound completely with a firmly taped moist dressing. "That chest tube's gonna go in to finish evacuating out the remnants of this pneumothorax. I can't use her existing wound because of the danger of contamination in the field. I have two very good surgeons standing by at the hospital right now to handle its placement into a second site."

"Do I know them?" Brice asked.

"Probably not. But they're both very easy to get to know. I know you'll like them. I've been thinking about trying to get them to transfer into our territory for months now. They do very good work." Kel said of the emergency department.  
"They go by the names of Alonzo "Gonzo" Gates and Trapper John McIntyre."

"I'll remember them." said Brice thoughtfully. Right then, there were shouts of triumph. Dixie had been sawed completely free and soon all the rescue machinery fell into blissful silence.

"Never doubted that for a second." Kel quipped. Letting go of his doctor mode,  
Brackett took a few moments to caress Dixie's hair tenderly and he leaned down to whisper encouragement into her ear. "You're ok now, love. Wake up just as soon as you can, all right? There's nothing else to be afraid of. We're all here together with you, and I'd be lying if I didn't say this : We're missing out on not seeing both your beautiful blue, Irish eyes smiling up at us. Roy and Johnny are a-o-kay, too, and waiting for you to show up at the hospital."

Dixie offered up her first sigh of recovery through her deep unconsciousness, in response to his familiar touch, as she began to fight the bag.

"That a girl. Keep it up." grinned Brackett tearfully. Then he looked up fearlessly.  
"Ok, guys. Let's get the show on the road. We'll take her out by K.E.D., rapid extrication. Then let's stretcher her out to the chopper."

-  
Marco Lopez drove Squad 24 the fastest three miles of his life behind Roy and Johnny's ambulance in order to get to Rampart. He burned just as bad as the others to be there in the waiting room with the rest of the crew for word of Dixie's final outcome following emergency surgery.

Kel Brackett wasn't one of them, to pace the floor with fretting and superficial chatter. He had bullnosed right into the operating room, to oversee every step of the procedure.

Hank Stanley pushed away the coffee he hadn't touched. "I sure hope she's gonna be all right. Geez.." he said. "She was still breathing when I left her with that firefighter." he said, punching the wall absently in worry with a fist. "Just what the h*ll happened?" he asked, pushing up the sleeves on his turnout jacket.

Johnny Gage looked up from the ice bag he was applying to his head.  
"Needle decompression, from what Brice told me. Now receiving that kind of radical treatment's bound to tire her out a little. She'll be fine. Her x-rays all came back negative across the board. No fractures, no spinal separations,  
only cuts, bruises..." he began, retying his hospital robe on more tightly around himself.

"Along with that huge hole we found in her chest." Hank countered.

Roy piped up from the wheelchair he was sitting in so he wouldn't have to walk on his recently stitched up leg. He, too, was wearing a hospital gown,  
a condition of his required overnight stay as authorized by the battalion chief. "She was poked by something sharp. Her ribs weren't broken, Cap. She should recover fairly quickly. There was no sign of internal injuries cropping up in the pre-op room."

"That remains to be seen post operatively." said Trapper John ominously.  
"One can never tell at this stage of the game. Gonzo and I were just in there and she was still intubated and being respiratory supported."

Gonzo slapped Trapper's arm to shush him. "Trap, don't go scaring them unnecessarily. Guys, her pressure's up and remains good. Don't listen to an old geezer like him." he said jerking a thumb at his colleague. "Sometimes,  
he doesn't even know what he's talking about."

"Hey," protested Joe Early. "Watch whom you're calling old." Early glared in a tease. "He's younger than I am."

The whole room of firefighters burst out laughing.

"Ah, maybe I'm not old on the calendar by your books. But to me, I'm sore all over. Observing Dixie's two hour exploratory procedure's got me creaking in every joint." Trapper said, reaching under his white doctor's coat to stretch out one of them.

Gonzo Gates jumped to his feet. "I can fix that. After all, Nurse Brancusi says massage therapy's my current specialty."

"Oh, ho!" Trapper celebrated. " I knew you two love birds were hitting it off on the sly. Nurse Ernestine Schoop said as much."

"We are not." Gates protested.

"You are, too." said Trapper, right back. "How else would anyone who's not a patient of yours know about your extraordinary skills as a hands on PT?"

Gonzo glared at him. "Ok, shut up right now. And lie down so I can work your kinks out." he said, pointing to Brackett's office desk.

"Anything you say, 'doctor.' " teased Trap of Gonzo's liaison with a nurse who was far older than he was, as he peeled off his surgeon's scrubs top to lay down on his stomach. "Far be it from me to tell you how to play doctor."

Gates parked his butt on the side of the desk and he made sure his first loosening exercises hurt a bit for good measure. "Doesn't that feel nice? We'll have you fixed up in a jiffy. Now about spreading my love life all over the county..." he warned, leaning low to one of Trapper's upturned ears.

"Love life? Did I mention anything about your long history of sordid romances here?"  
McIntyre puzzled.

"You did." said everyone in the room.

"Oh, ok, so I did. Well, I stand.. er.. lay before you.. most humbly corrected." he apologized to his co-colleague as Gonzo continued to lay in hard with his massage techniques.

Gonzo switched his hands for a pointy, sharply pressed elbow, working deftly. Right along the spine. "Say you're sorry."

"Sorry for what?" McIntyre quipped. He immediately gulped it down when Gonzo laid most of his weight down onto the elbow. "Owww..Ahhh! Ok. ok... I'm sorry. I'm sorry..." he chuckled. "Are you satisfied?"

Gonzo squinted both eyes at him for long seconds as he stepped back away from Trapper. "Has your back stopped hurting you yet?" he finally asked.

Trapper continued to laugh loudly in embarrassment as he rolled over. Then he stopped laughing, turning his attention inward. "Wow, yeah. Pain's gone."

"There you go. Put your shirt back on. Congratulations. I cured you." said Gonzo with a diffident, still hurt stare.

"You sure did." said Trapper instantly, still hoping to soothe his friend.

"Too bad I can't cure you of a serious case of gossiping lip." Gates whispered under his breath as he sipped some Folders.

"Wha? Huh?" said Trapper, still fighting to get his head through his scrubs uniform's neck opening. "Did you say something to me, Gonz?"

"Nothing. Go sit and enjoy your coffee like the rest of us are doing. We should be hearing word about Dixie's recovery any moment now. It's nine o'clock p.m." Gonzo told him, looking carefully at his watch.

"Already?" asked Johnny in surprise. "Boy, was that a fast four hours."

"It helps that you were sleeping for most of it." said DeSoto, not looking up from his magazine. He scratched an itch under his head bandage.

"Look who's talking Mr. Nap Man. Who needed smelling salts to come around in the ER this afternoon?" Johnny snapped at him.

"Gentlemen,..the phone's ringing.." said Chet, pointing to the red one on the wall. He stood up and answered it briefly before he cupped the receiver into a palm. For some reason, he was keeping a very straight face. Then he came out with it. "Sounds like it's Dixie, calling from her room already?"

Every male in the room fell over themselves and each other trying to reach the phone. In the end, it was Joe Early, who held the phone receiver. "How are you doing, hon? Back from recovery so soon? Uh..huh. Uh..huh. If those pain meds aren't working for you well enough, I've got five doctors in mind who'll order you more.. Ok.. uh..See you soon. Bye bye."

Early hung up the phone with a bang. "She wants to see us. Uh, that's in between all the puke pans. The anesthesia's doing a number on her.."

"She wants us to visit her right now?" asked Gage eagerly, hardly believing his ears.

"Yep." said Joe.

Everyone stampeded, rushed or hand wheeled their wheelchairs out the door and to the elevators in seconds.

Kel Brackett's office door closed soundly behind them.

Joe Early remained leaning where he was against the wall, smiling hugely.  
"That's fine. Somebody'll remember to come back in here soon to ask me exactly what room number and floor she's on. Nobody on the staff knows that yet except me. I think I'll wait around right here for a couple of minutes until somebody finally pokes their head back in. Then I'll show them the way." he celebrated.

Joe Early got busy pouring himself another suddenly very tasty cup of java.  
"Here's to you, Dixie." he toasted to the air. "Welcome back."

FIN

Episode Forty One, Attrition Emergency Theater Live

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